While most of the world deals with kilometers, there are still a few places where miles are used. Sometimes, it can get confusing if a swimmer is referring to statute miles or nautical miles.

A convenient conversion tool between statute miles and nautical miles is here.

But without a doubt and without going into detail, the term mile has many definitions – and over the course of a marathon swim, the actual distance was vary widely.

Throughout history, people used the following terms:

The nautical mile (symbol M, NM or nmi), the Roman mile, the Arab mile, the Arabic mile), the Danish mil, German geografische Meile, the Swedish mil, the Portuguese milha, the Russian milya (русская миля), the hrvatska milja (or the Croatian mile), the banska milja (or hrvatska milja), the Austrian mile, the statute mile, the “old English” mile, the Scots mile, the Royal Mile, the English mile, the Irish mile, the “international mile”, the US survey mile, the metric mile, the nautical mile, the data mile, the radar mile, the sea mile, the geographical mile, the telegraphic mile, the tactical mile and the radar mile.

Whatever definition is used, it is a fact that there are miles and miles to go in every marathon swim (itself another term in the open water swimming world that has numerous definitions).

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